


Stage Fright

by magic_and_hijinx



Category: Game Grumps, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Game Grumps - Freeform, M/M, Talk Shows, jacksepticeye - Freeform, light hypnosis, tiny tiny bit inspired by the late late show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 07:05:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13829022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magic_and_hijinx/pseuds/magic_and_hijinx
Summary: Dan gets anxious before a big talk show appearance. Luckily, a friendly face is there to soothe his nerves.





	Stage Fright

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so please ignore this next screed if you've just found this in a tag somewhere. Read on if you've found this in your subscriptions (does A03 even have a sub box or w/e?) and are wondering where the fuck I've been for the past year or so:  
> Hey folks! It's been a while. I've still been reading your lovely comments and to be honest it's been a big motivator in why I'm posting this. Basically, I went through a huge period where I was super uncomfortable with writing RPF, especially hypnosis RPF. I can't say I don't still feel that way a little so I can't say for definite that I'll be going back to posting this type of content. If I do, it'll be either people who have explictly said that they're comfy with ship stuff (ie: Jack and most of the Grumps) or fictional characters/alter egos (ie: Warfstache, Anti, etc). I don't know if I'll be continuing with Full Of Plasma but it's very heavily leaning to 'no' right now.  
> TL;DR: I don't know if I'm 'back' but I was inspired to write this and I hope it's at least somewhat of an apology for fucking off for so long. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

There was a little corridor that led off the green room that was perfect. It led to nowhere and the walls were so thick that the merry chatter was a muffled echo. It must’ve been built for exactly the purpose Dan used it for; pacing up and down in hopes of scaring his nerves away.  
He tried to seek peace of mind, but the tidal wave of anxiety wasn’t stopping any time soon. When he finally stopped thinking about how many people were going to be in the audience, he started wondering how many people were watching on TV. How many home viewers would a talk show like this get? He should’ve looked it up before he left. The internet was killing TV and all, but surely the figure was in the millions. His stomach churned.  
After all, he knew exactly why he were here. It happened all the time on shows like this. They’d bring people on with wacky, non-traditional careers and show them off like circus animals. It made for good entertainment- everyone likes to poke jabs at people who they don’t think deserve to make a living doing what they do- but it was a whole different story from the other side.  
The door crept open. He froze.  
“Are you okay in here?” a soft Irish voice asked.  
His body was stuck rigid as a statue, as if the flurry of panicked thoughts were tripping up his wiring. “Y-yeah.”  
It didn’t even convince Dan. The door came shuddering to a close behind the man; apparently, it hadn’t convinced him either.  
“Is this the first time you’ve been on something like this?” he asked.  
“…Yeah.” Dan slowly turned around. There was only one wall scone lighting the entire blackened corridor, but the corridor was small enough that it still shed some light on the man’s face. After a few more paces forward, the light danced in his eyes. There was a soft smile on his face.  
“Me too. How are your nerves doing?”  
Dan gulped involuntarily. “Not good.”  
The man’s smile took on a warmer tint. “I feel ya. What’s your name?”  
“Dan. Uh, Dan Avidan.” He didn’t know why he added the second name. That was what pretentious assholes did, wasn’t it? Or was it?  
He rubbed his chin and tilted his head to the side, as if he was trying to get a better look at Dan. “Name rings a bell. What are you on for?”  
A rock hit Dan’s chest. This was the part he was dreading.  
“W-well uh…me and my friends have a band called Starbomb. And, like, it’s kind of stupid but-“  
The man’s face lit up. “Oh shit, I know exactly who you are!” He pointed vigorously at Dan. “God, why the hell didn’t they tell me you were on?”  
Dan couldn’t help smiling. The man’s enthusiasm infected him a little. “I don’t know, man.” He shrugged. “But I’m glad at least someone gets me.”  
He nodded empathetically. “Yeah, I getcha. It’s always weird going out to an audience as ‘The Youtube Person’.”  
Dan scrunched his face up a little. “Sorry, what do you do? I didn’t catch your name either. Uh, sorry.”  
“No worries. I’m Jack and I…” He scratched the back of his head. “…Well, I play video games for a living but don’t tell them I told ya that.” He pointed his thumb back through the door. “So far I’ve used the term ‘social media content creator’ 4 times and I can feel my soul rotting every time I do.” He flashed a smile that turned the rock in Dan’s chest to goop.  
“I didn’t even know what to say I just…came out here.” Dan looked at the ground.  
Jack stared at him for a bit. “Yeah, I noticed. Got a bit worried about ‘cha.”  
A tanoy sounded.  
15 MINUTES TO SHOWTIME, it blared.  
This time, Dan’s chest filled with acid. His breaths felt out of his control and he bit the inside of his lip just to feel something solid. The panicked thoughts came back with renewed vigour. Anxiety pangs slammed into his heart.  
Jack’s hand hovered over his elbow. “Hey, you’re going to be fine. You’re on after me.”  
“You’re the only one I can talk to here and you’re going to be gone and I’m not going to be able to do this and god I’m going to start doing this on stage-“ The words streamed out of his gaping mouth and no force on Earth could stop them.  
Jack went quiet for a moment again. “Hey, I know something that might help ya.”  
Dan nodded in lieu of words.  
Jack’s hand drifted closer to Dan’s arm and gently wrapped around it. “I got shown these breathing techniques at school. Really helped when I was about to do presentations ‘n stuff.”  
“Mhm?”  
“It’s a bit different from the ones you usually get taught. I think that’s why it works, but it’s a bit weird. You need two people to do it, and well- you can imagine being a 13 year old boy asking his mate to do some weird psychological jumbo on him.”  
Dan nodded again. Seeing Jack close up, his gaze was drawn to the way the reflected light seemed to swirl around in his eyes despite the scone staying firmly in place on the wall.  
“So what you do, is…” He tightened his grip on Dan’s arm just an ounce, enough to hold it up if it spontaneously fell off, and trained his gaze on Dan’s eyes. “First of all, I want’cha to focus on my eyes and my arm over here, okay?” He ran his fingertips over Dan’s arm. “And every time some loose stressful thought comes wandering into your head, that’s where you seek refuge, right? Focus the sight, focus the mind. The idea is to keep as many of your senses focused as possible, give you as many places to run away to as possible.”  
His eyes would’ve been easy to focus on even if there wasn’t a renegade spark running around in them. They were a soft shade of blue; not the kind of light blue that romance novels rattled on about, but the kind of blue that made everything solid a little mushier. The rock in his chest, the thoughts in his head, the muscles in his body.  
“…So to that end, I’d like you to just focus on my voice as well. See, voices are an interesting thing. You ever focus purely on what someone’s saying, take in their every word, lose yourself in the sound of their voice?”  
“Mmm,” Dan replied.  
Jack smiled. “Well, what tends to happen is that after a while you end up losing track of what they’re actually saying and just start bobbing along to the cadence of their voice. Even if you’ve got a great attention span, there comes a time where the only thing your brain can focus on is the way they sound. Once you get to a point where you’re just letting their words flow into your head unopposed and you’re not really thinking about what they say, that’s kind of the epitome of focus. It’s ironic in a way.”  
Dan was getting the hang of it. His head was filling up with endless questions again, but this time they were all about Jack. Jack’s accent was interesting. There was no doubt it was Irish, but it was starkly different from their Irish intern (who was, ironically enough, also called Jack). Did accents vary across regions? Where did Jack sound like he was from? Where did Jack learn to make his voice flow like that?  
“…so it’s important to watch out for that when you’re trying to destress.”  
Dan perked up a little. “Hm?”  
Jack’s smug grin spilled out over his cheeks. “Didn’t catch that, did’ya?”  
Dan shook his head and smiled nervously. He would’ve felt silly if he still had room left in his head for thoughts like that.  
“That’s okay. After all, you’ve got a lot to focus on. As I said, listening to someone closely for a while is enough work, but you’re still focusing on my eyes, right? And my hand on your arm?”  
Dan nodded.  
“And you don’t even really need to listen to what I’m saying for this to work, all that matters is that we run those pesky troublesome thoughts out of your head, right? So as long as that’s happening, I don’t mind if you just let your mind go elsewhere whilst you’re listening to me drone on and on…I’m not really saying much of import, anyways. Nothing you didn’t already know. You already know you need to relax, and breathe, and focus on me until you lose your train of thought….”  
Jack took a moment to admire his handiwork. Dan’s shoulders had slumped down; his eyes were glassy, but clearly strained from staring for too long. They were getting droopier by the moment and they’d eventually close. But that didn’t matter much. He was already in the perfect headspace.  
Jack leaned in to whisper in your ear. “Now, in a little bit I’ll have to go. They’ll call you out about fifteen minutes after and you’ll be sitting with me whilst you do your bit. It’s important you sit right next to me. You see, every time I touch your arm like this-“ He tightened his grip on Dan’s arm for a moment, just for emphasis. “-you’ll come back to this lovely state of relaxation. You’ll still be able to talk and think, but all of the scarier thoughts will just float out of your head. Did you catch all that?”  
Dan nodded.  
“Good.” Jack pulled back and had once last look at Dan’s relaxed, motionless face. “Now, when I take my hand away you’ll start to slowly come back to the room. All of the panicked thoughts you had before have been long disposed of and they won’t come back. And even if they do, you know what’ll happen to them when I’m around. Okay?”  
Dan made a sleepy affirmative noise. It put a smile on Jack’s face.  
“Okay.” He took his arm away. Bit by bit, life flowed back into Dan’s body. His cheeks twitched and his nose flared, then his eyes started to slowly flutter open.  
“You okay?”  
Dan grinned sleepily. “Yeah. Thanks man.”  
“No problem.”  
The tanoy started again.  
5 MINUTES TO SHOWTIME.  
“We better get going,” Jack said, gesturing to the door.


End file.
